Warid signs up Ericsson for LTE deployment

Warid Telecom has enlisted Swedish vendor Ericsson for the deployment of its 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network , Pro Pakistan writes citing unnamed sources. Warid aims to make the service available in the following five cities by the end of the year; Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad and Gujranwala. Having chosen to sit out of the recent auction of 3G and 4G licences, Warid intends to use its existing spectrum holdings in the 1800MHz band to roll out 4G services, but this plan has yet to be green lit by the watchdog the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, the PTA rejected Warid’s initial application to use its frequencies for 4G services, saying that the request was too vague. PTA has instructed the cellco to provide greater detail on how much spectrum will carved out for LTE services and what impact this will have on its existing GSM/GPRS/EDGE customers.